Oct 2 • Business • 661 Views • Comments Off on Help! My Line Manager Doesn’t Love Me Any More

There’s a lot of pressure when starting out in a new job. On top of undergoing the thorough training that is required to thrive in your position, your line manager’s job description is also to ease you into the environment and make you feel more comfortable in the office space, with the intention of improving your productivity.

This may go swimmingly at first and you may even find that you and your line manager have a lot in common on an extramural level, but it’s quite possible that one day this all changes and the law gets laid down pretty thick. “Where did it all go wrong?” you might ask yourself. In order to find out as best you can, without compromising your work ethic, here are a few tips on how to effectively and efficiently deal with your line manager’s new attitude towards you.

It’s not Me, it’s You (I think).

It’s not the role of your line manager to be your BFF (best friend forever) so if you’ve been getting on like a house on fire then think of it as a bonus and accept that there’s always the risk you may get burnt. If things stop going very well it’s important not to get defensive but carefully evaluate your attitude towards line manager and employee. Are you compromising business operations because you’ve become complacent and have slacked off slightly? These are important questions to ask.

Grin and Bear it

We all have the tendency to get on the defensive when we feel a change for the worst is directed at us. It’s important not to take this too seriously. A line manager’s primary responsibility it to get results, however possible. If this means you’re not as buddy buddy as you were before it may well be that they’re very too busy to entertain your usual banter. Remember that if you aren’t working to your full potential, one of a line manager’s responsibilities is to address this. So don’t get too stressed.

Take the Boss by the Horns

You don’t want to hire a private eye to get to the bottom of why your line manager is treating you any differently, but if through chatting to colleagues or just watching your manager’s activity throughout the day you may see some patterns emerge that could be responsible for a behavioural change. If there are absolutely no signs then it’s not a bad idea to approach your line manager with your concerns and mention that you feel your working relationship has changed. Ask him/her where you could maybe improve or how you could adjust in order to make things more amicable again.

Citations:

Dave Peterson has a penchant for business travel. Whether its flying overseas to look for Houston office space or going to conferences in foreign cities, he’ll never say no to a business class return flight.